In Which The World Moves Too Quickly

Connor had his first loose tooth this afternoon. 

For some reason this hit me hard.  I think it's easy for me to think of Connor as younger than he really is because he doesn't develop at the same pace as most kids his age.  He's much smaller than them for one thing; more the size of a three or four year old.  And he changes very slowly.  But in this one little way he's right on track, and I can't deny the fact that he's really not a baby or even a toddler any more.  He's growing up. 

So I called my mother to let her know, and learned that my Aunt Pat passed away today.

Aunt Pat was the oldest of my mother's siblings; she was born in 1935 towards the end of the Great Depression.  Her health had been poor for some time, but her death was unexpected.  In recent years when we would chat, she and I would commiserate about how awkward it was to haul around oxygen tanks and about the difficulty of finding handicapped spaces on busy days at the grocery store.  I never heard her complain about how she was feeling, though-- she always claimed she was "getting on all right." 

A tiny woman, she always teased me about how tall I was, and whenever she'd see me and my cousin Merritt together she'd call us "a couple of string beans."  Because we lived so far from each other, I only saw her every few years-- the last time at my sister's wedding in 2009-- but we spoke over the phone much more often.  She liked to call me her "darlin' girl," and she always had a smile for me and a question about how "little Connor" was getting on.

For the second time today I was taken aback by how time marches on whether or not one is paying attention to it.  Aunt Pat was a remarkable woman.  And she was solid, dependable.  She was always there when I needed her, a phone call away, ready with a kind word and an open heart.  A world without her seems hard to fathom.  I wish I could have called to tell her about Connor's loose tooth, and about how he's growing up too quickly.  I'm not sure what she would have said, but I'm sure it would have made me laugh. 

Here's to you, Aunt Pat.  May the road rise to meet you.

~Jess

   

In Which I Make A Horrible Discovery (WARNING: DO NOT READ WHILE EATING BREAKFAST)

Okay, so that was pretty horrific.

We just finished up a lovely dinner with some friends of ours, and I went in to check up on the gerbils.  We had a vet appointment scheduled for tomorrow, and I was hoping the fuzzy critter would hold out until then, but things hadn't been looking too good earlier in the day.  When I went in, I was prepared to find the little guy gone.

What I was not prepared for was that the little guy was gone and the other gerbil was eating him.

Yes, I looked into the cage and was presented with a grisly Donner Party reenactment in gerbil form-- Lili, with a bloodstained muzzle, standing over the body of Teke, which he'd dragged to a corner of the cage.  Evidently he hadn't been too long at it because the dead gerbil was totally recognizable as a gerbil except that a good portion of his upper chest cavity was missing.  The only reason I didn't start shrieking at the top of my lungs was that Connor was sleeping and I definitely did NOT want him to wake up and see this.

I ended up picking up the ex-gerbil with about ten layers of paper towels, taking him outside in the rain (it being an appropriately stormy night), and burying him in the backyard.  Then I put a huge rock over the area so that there wasn't any chance some passing woodland animal would dig him up and eat him again.  I've been traumatized enough as it is, and picking up gerbil parts out of my lawn might just be what pushes me over the edge. 

So now we are not only out one gerbil, whose demise is probably directly my fault due to that whole water bottle thing, but I am also now totally creeped out by the remaining gerbil.  I mean sure, I read up on it and apparently this is natural gerbil behavior-- something about them disposing of bodies because they don't want to have predators attracted to the nest-- but despite that Lili now gives me the heebie-jeebies.  Other than the whole cannabilism thing he's perfectly healthy (though that may not be the case any more if Teke had something contagious), but he's also pretty anti-people, which is sort of fine with me right now.  They say that gerbils are social creatures and really need to be kept in pairs, but I think that Lili is destined to be a solitary gerbil.  I'm not sure I'd trust his reaction to a new "friend." 

I need a cup of tea.

~Jess

In Which We Lose An Extraordinary Man

I thought I would share the touching obituary my Aunt Laura wrote for my grandfather with you. While no obituary could ever begin to touch on the full scope of a man's life, it does give you a sense of the kind of person that Papa Daddy was.

Dr. Charles A. Richardson died at home with his wife of 65 years at his side on Wednesday, Dec. 9, from complications of longstanding heart disease and a recent stroke.

Visitation is at Restland Funeral Home on Monday, Dec. 14 from 6 to 8 PM, and a memorial service will be Tuesday, Dec. 15 at 12:30 PM at the Wildwood Chapel at Restland.

A resident of Richardson for 54 years, Richardson was a community and business leader whose legacy includes service to the city’s schools, library, hospital, parks and recreation facilities. In the early 1950s, Richardson worked for the Dallas County Health Department and taught at Baylor Dental School, then began 25 years of private orthodontic practice in Richardson. In middle age he returned to school and took a degree in finance, then in 1974 organized Richardson National Bank, and later established one of the earliest of Texas’ bank holding companies.

Richardson was elected to the board of the Richardson Independent School District in 1968 and served throughout the 1970s. In the early 1960s he also served on the city’s parks and recreation board and on the local hospital board. In later years he was a member of the board of directors of H&R Block. A 32nd degree Mason and a Hella Temple Shriner who worked with DeMolay, he was also active in other civic and professional service organizations.

In his private life he was a man of boundless curiosity and fierce intelligence. He had played football in high school and boxed in college, and always maintained an imposing physical presence and a high degree of athleticism. He took up downhill skiing after his 70th birthday, when he became eligible for free lift tickets: he was thrifty all his life. He was a passionate outdoorsman, a hunter and fisherman who passed on his enthusiasm and skill to his children, grandchildren, and many friends. A master gardener, he shared the harvests of his fruit trees and vegetable gardens with friends, family, and the local food bank. He loved to barbecue, choosing his smoking woods with care and creating delicious, spicy feasts to serve his many guests.

He had a tender heart for animals and was unfailingly kind to the numerous, occasionally bizarre, creatures that his four children brought home. He especially loved the Labrador dogs, Count and Kate, that shared his old age.

Richardson was born July 12, 1923 in Saratoga, Texas, the youngest of the five children—two girls and three boys-- of Lemuel Archibald and Sally Lee (Wright) Richardson. His boyhood in Cleveland was marked by poverty and hard work, as well as by dangerous, unsupervised adventures in the Big Thicket of East Texas, which became the stories with which he regaled his children and grandchildren. He went to work at the age of five, washing dishes in his mother’s café, and by age eight was an employee of wide experience. He was, variously, a bootlegger's runner (hiding the prepaid "orders" at designated spots around town and hidey-holes near railroad tracks), a carpenter's helper, short-order cook, and postal worker. In late adolescence he ran a few slot machines and rode the rails around the state.

A regular student at the University of Texas at Austin, he met Gene Marie Davis in 1942 on the first day of summer school physics class at Sam Houston State in Huntsville. Drafted into the Army and sent to dental school under the accelerated program to meet war demand for medical personnel, Richardson married Davis in August 1944 before he was shipped overseas.

Stationed in Saipan, he formed warm friendships with his Chinese Army colleague Dr. Zhang (also part of the occupying force) and with Chamorro fishermen, who took him and his young wife along on numerous expeditions. Here begin his intense, lifelong interest in Asia, which led him in his 70s to begin learning Mandarin and to travel to Shanghai to study. When China reopened to the west with the end of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in 1976, he reconnected with his friend Zhang. Eventually he sponsored the immigration to the US of Zhang’s god-daughter, Cho Ping, who became an integral member of the Richardson family.

He and his wife traveled extensively in the US and in Latin America, and made extended visits to friends and family in South and East Asia, Europe, Turkey, Egypt, and New Zealand. They rode hard sleepers across China, and drove from New Delhi across Pakistan to the Chinese border. Everywhere they went, Richardson met the unexpected with interest and aplomb. At one point, visiting friends working in a leprosy hospital in Nepal, he was asked to perform emergency oral surgery without anesthetic or even a proper drill, which he did. Successfully.

He is survived by his wife, Gene; four children-- Linda (James Gillespie), Laura (Rone Tempest), Will (Teresa Kanan) and Dee (Rob McManamy); his god-daughter Cho Ping (Ning Ling); five grandsons, six granddaughters, two great-grandchildren; two nieces, three nephews, and many grand and great-grand nieces and nephews.

~Jess

In Which I Find Ways To Occupy My Time

Thanks, everybody, for your kind words. It's hard for me to be here and not in Texas, as in addition to the Feed Everybody gene I inherited from my parents I also got the Run Over There And Help gene that kicks in whenever something like this happens, which is making me desperately want to drop everything and get on a plane. I'm missing my family right now and wishing I could be there, but with Connor's recent seizures and Jeremy's lack of ability to use a public restroom it's just not feasible right now. Everyone in the family understands, of course, but that doesn't change the way I feel about it. That's the way it goes sometimes, I guess.

We did hear from the neurologist yesterday; he upped Connor's medication again and then told us he'd put in a referral for Connor to have another video EEG done up in Seattle. We aren't sure when that will happen yet, but it's a step in the right direction. Hopefully the new medication dosage will help stave off the seizures and we'll be able to go without adding another medication to Connor's regime.

The house is coming along well; the gas line went in this week so now the house has heat! It feels great in there right now. When we stopped by today Santiago was putting up the drywall, and it looked fantastic! We have a pantry now, the kitchen has walls again, and the master bathroom was taking shape while I was there. It's so exciting to see the way the house is coming together. With the crazy couple of weeks that we've had I haven't had a chance to get over there to work at all so it's been a while since we'd seen it. Tomorrow I'll be over there rain or shine, though-- the lawn needs mowing and the weeds are all coming back with a vengeance, so I need to do some clean-up before I can start back in on the ivy again. I'm glad for the work, though, as it will no doubt be a big stress reliever to be able to just lose myself in the rhythm of gardening. Now that we have heat it will be a lot easier for Jer and Connor to hang out in the house while I get some work done there in the afternoons during the week or on Saturday, so hopefully I'll be able to spend a lot more time over there in the next few weeks. I'll be sure to bundle up, as it's very cold outside!

I'll also be heading over to our storage unit some time in the next few days. While we won't be having a big Christmas this year I do want to put at least a few things up to show the holiday spirit. I'd like to get out our nativity set-- probably the one that Loki doesn't like to give baths to-- and maybe get a two or three foot tall rosemary tree or something to plant later instead of a big Christmas tree, since we don't really have room for one in the apartment. If I get us a wreath to make the house smell good it will be placed somewhere completely cat proof to stave off last year's disaster. I can't wait to see what trouble he'll get in this year to make up for the lack of Christmas decorations to shred!

Crazy cat.

~Jess

In Which I Remember My Grandfather

When I think of my grandfather, I think of Christmas.

Every year around Christmas time when I was growing up my grandfather would adjust his glasses, pull on his heavy red plaid flannel coat and his boots, and we’d head down to the local Christmas parade. We’d usually get there a little early and find a place to stand somewhere up close to the front. The high school bands would march by, the floats would pass, and all of the little kids (and some not so little) who were throwing out candy to passersby would run up to us, place a double handful into his hands, and whisper to him what they wanted for Christmas. He would nod gravely to the children and the candy would disappear with a faint crinkling sound into the large pockets of his coat. I used to think it was horribly unfair that my grandfather ended up with so much more candy than I did just because he looked like Santa Claus.

And he did look like Santa Claus; from his rosy cheeks and his white beard right down to the gold Turkish elf-shoes with the turned up toes he kept on the mat by the front door. Rather on the thin side for a Santa, perhaps, but one glimpse of his mischievous grin would convince almost anyone that Kris Kringle, when he wasn’t delivering presents to children across the globe, masqueraded as a retired dentist-turned-gardener who lived in a mid-sized suburb of Dallas with his wife and yellow lab, enjoyed fishing, spoke Chinese, and played a mean game of pool.

My grandfather passed away quietly today after a slow decline over a period of months. I won’t be able to make the funeral, but my heart will be in Texas this weekend with my grandmother, my father and his sisters, and the rest of my family.

So a merry Christmas and much love to you, Papa Daddy.

It won't be the same without you.

~Jess